kaitlinolson

(S03E04) The McPoyles are on the loose! They've taken over Paddy's Pub and are threatening to shoot the gang in the face! The tension mounts! Frank and his gun are in the vents, nowhere to be found! What will they do? What will they do?

This is the best episode of the third season so far, mainly because it tells a nice, cohesive story from beginning to end. It also does a little something different from most Sunny episodes, as it not only makes fun of a particular movie genre -- the hostage drama -- but basically takes place within the confines of the pub. Oh, and Fred Savage is the director. How can you go wrong?

(S03E03) Say goodbye to Anne Archer. Unless she comes back as a ghost.

In this episode, Rob, Glenn, and Charlie have decided to kill off Barbara Reynolds, who is Dennis and Dee's mother and the "whore" ex-wife of Frank. Not such a bad idea; Archer didn't really fit well into the mix last year, so having her kick the bucket is probably the best for the show's chemistry.

Stephen Collins comes back as Bruce Mathis, Dennis and Dee's real dad and a peach of a guy. Unlike Archer, Collins did do a good job last year, and he does a good job here. The rest of the episode? It's OK... a little sitcommy, but OK.

Last week, I got a chance to speak to Rob McElhenney, creator and co-executive producer of FX's no-holds-barred comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which will air its third and fourth episodes of the season tonight at 10 PM ET. We spoke about the third season, about getting Fred Savage to direct some episodes, the making of their "BJ" video, and how Kaitlin "Sweet Dee" Olson almost lost her role on The Riches because of Sunny. We also discussed few details that came out on the DVD of the first two seasons, like why they shot all of Danny DeVito's scenes at once and how they got the TV legend to leer at his daughter.

Instead of typing out the entire transcript and printing it (frankly, transcribing makes us tired), we decided to take advantage of this whole Net 2.0 thing that's going on and embed the audio of the entire interview, which is about 28 minutes. So, after the jump, I'll give you the embed and some highlights.

(S01E12) With just one episode to go in the season, the dominoes have started to fall. We've seen the Malloy family wriggle their way out of some tight spots. After this episode, you really have to wonder just how they are going to do it again. Some kind of a showdown with Dale was inevitable from the get go, but the new twists with Nina and Pete really add fuel to the fire.

Give the writers credit for some nice planning with Pete (Arye Gross). Cael found the emails from him early on and I had wondered if and when they were going to deal with that. Wayne's plan to just play dumb seemed a little crazy, but what other option did they really have? It did make for quite the crazy scene for the "Mont Pierres."

(S01E10) The fallout from the dinner party in "Cinderella" hit this week, and it made for one crazy ride. This is also the episode that switched my thinking from "Eddie Izzard, the comic, is doing a great job as Wayne" to, "Eddie Izzard is an actor." The writers heaped a heavy load on his back this week and he answered with what was an amazing performance.

Things got off to a great start with Wayne and Dahlia's fight over the drugs that Chunky left behind. It's interesting that he walked in on her before she could decide which way she was going. I think that she would have flushed the stuff eventually, but we'll never know for sure. The chaotic argument after Wayne snorted a handful of the crank was fantastic. Dahlia's reaction, "Of all the assholic things you have done, this is the most assholic." summed it up nicely. That was such a crazy thing to do that it warranted brand new words to describe it.